Transcription
Hey Spare Parts Army, I have a brief statement. This will be my last or second-to-last episode for Task and Purpose because I'm leaving my role as head of video at the end of this week.
For six years I've called our community that we've built here together Spare Parts. It's a phrase that's deeply personal to my life; that was my squad's nickname when I was deployed to Iraq. We were made up of backfills, re-classed, and stop-loss guys, and I used it here to describe us because our community is not necessarily the special forces or geopolitical experts. We're your regular prior-service veterans; we're your civilian enthusiasts; we're people who are secretly military curious, and people who have my kind of tism. But I think we're all united by our shared love for learning about the world.
To learn what's next for our community and for my team, to find out why we're leaving and where we're going, you have to follow me on Instagram or Twitter, CappyArmy, for the announcement soon. Follow me on Instagram or Twitter, CappyArmy, if you want to reach me with any questions at all. I'm not sure what the company Task and Purpose is doing next on here or who they'll replace this average infantryman with, but I hope you continue to watch their new team's content too. Because even though I'm leaving as the head of video, I'm grateful for the opportunity that they gave me to grow this channel from nothing to you, the 2 million subscribers, the Spare Parts Army, who've changed my life and given me this opportunity.
Now, on with the episode. In a dramatic shift, Russian forces have recaptured most of Ukraine-occupied Kursk in a massive offensive campaign. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces have conducted another incursion into Russian territory in Belgrad. The new incursion is smaller and appears to be designed to open up more areas, in what looks like an attempt to prevent Russia from continuing their push into the Sunumi region after Kursk. What can we learn from the three main tactics Russia used to recapture Kursk, and what might this mean for the broader war effort?
The first way Russia went about recapturing Kursk was by using Spetznaz forces that struck at key Ukrainian command and control nodes on March 8th. Russian mil-blogger Two Majors, that you've probably heard of before, he shared video footage from one of these teams, camed Shadow, destroying a comm's antenna with a drone. Two Majors commented that the sabotage teams had also blown up bridges in the area to slow down Ukrainian troops and supply movements. When the Spetznaz teams were forward deployed, they started feeding reconnaissance intelligence reports back to their commanders. This meant that Russian forces knew key information about upcoming Ukrainian troop movements and rotations, because when the guys rotate, when they infiltrate and exfiltrate from the positions they're at, their most vulnerable, which is why they keep that information secret. Russia was able to time their attack for when Ukraine was most exposed.
On a personal note, when I traveled there last year, to be fully transparent with you, I made friends with many of the Ukrainian infantrymen who are fighting there, like Olexi the Bradley commander, and I can't help but feel awful for what they're fighting through right now. I would feel like I was leaving something out if I didn't acknowledge that this report, on a personal level, is difficult for me to cover because I hope those guys made it out okay.
Next, Russian soldiers used quad bikes to quickly move over the terrain. Even though it's a dangerous mode of transport, it does have its advantages; it gave them the ability to exploit openings in a lightning-fast attack. To that point, a Ukrainian commander told the New York Post that around 10 of these Russian ATVs broke through the lines in three separate sectors. "Behind those positions, the land was empty and undefended, so they made a swift raid, covered by artillery and drones from the rear and cut that part off." This is when the siege of the key town of Suja began. Conventional Russian grunts were sent in and advised, supported by VDV paratroopers. Ukrainian drone operator Craigs Frocher, who's actually on the ground in Kursk, said on X in his report that he'd only seen a few Russian tanks in the past four months, but by January he was suddenly seeing BMP3s and T80 tanks attacking Ukrainian positions day and night. Trust me, my ears are still ringing from the intensity of the artillery fire when I was in Kursk, which is good because it helps drown out the voices in my head.
By March 12th, he identified a massive surge in elite forces that he'd never observed the Russian deploy before. These are the sorts of units that have been spearheading assaults in high-priority sectors in the face of heavy losses. And talking about losses on both sides in this battle is nothing to make light of; we're talking about a seriously staggering casualty scale here. I feel it's cliché of me at this point, but I think it's also important to remind myself that each of these people who are dying are someone's son and daughter. Since I found out that I'm going to be a father, that framing has impacted me more. When you see how, how much people sacrifice trying to have children and how much they give to their kids, I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child to war.
The Russian military then deployed an unorthodox tactic: they shut off an underground natural gas pipeline that ran through Suja, through Russia into Ukraine, several days prior to the assault. Over 100 Russian soldiers from various different units, including the Amet special forces unit, walked, hunched over, for 15 kilometers through the inside of a pipeline, carrying supplies on carts, waiting up to six days at the end of that tunnel for the right moment to pop out of the pipe in Suja, behind Ukrainian lines in the industrial zone there. In some of the photos and videos that I saw, Russian troops released, it appeared to be that they were wearing blue armbands. The purpose of this was likely to deceive Ukrainian soldiers into thinking they were friendlies. Reports indicate on March 8th a number of Russian troops exited the pipeline, and a major firefight broke out behind Ukrainian lines. It could have caught the Ukrainian troops by surprise, and some suggest this is what led to a reversal on the battlefield. Russia likely used Soviet archive maps that they had to know how to get through the pipelines, how to navigate them, and use them to their advantage. This is the second time we've seen Russian forces use this tactic; last time they went through a water or a pipeline in Abdfka, where it reportedly worked. The major advantage here, of course, is that under the pipes, as narrow and unprotected as you are, you're not going to be spotted by those attack drones overhead. There are dozens of pipes exiting all over the place here, so it's difficult to cover down on them all. The thing that absolutely blew me away was a photo of one of the soldiers smoking a cigarette in the turned-off gas pipeline.
The results of this gas pipeline tactic are uncertain. Russian sources say it was a complete success, while Ukrainian sources say that they caught the plan in time, laid a trap, eliminated 80% of the Russians that emerged. When we follow developing situations like this, it's impossible for me to say for certain; we will know when it clears up one day, though. A gas pump station here was later blown up, with again each side accusing the other of being behind the attack.
But before we get into that, the only way this video is possible is thanks to ODU. ODU prides itself on the motto, "Unity makes creative strength," and through its robust, seemingly never-ending suite of business management applications, its ability to unite with my creative workflow, for one, has proven to strengthen pretty much every aspect of my day-to-day operations. And today I want to focus mainly on my favorite part of the platform and what I think really differentiates it from a lot of other competitors out there: its user interface. No matter whether you're using just one application or you have many applications across multiple businesses in different cities, selecting your database to reflect exactly what you want to see is as easy as a touch of the button, and it's completely customizable. That means you can collate and function the right data at the right time, which I've found to drastically decrease the amount of time that I spend on things like balancing budgets, authorizing payroll, and checking sales trends. So if you're looking for a simple and easy-to-use software platform for business management, be sure to check out odo.com; the first application is free for life, you don't even need a credit card.
A major factor in the turn of fate for Kursk was when Russia deployed their Rubicon Center of Advanced Unmanned Systems to the Kursk region in early March. When I first heard that, I thought it sounded like a university or a think tank or something, but Rubicon Center is one of the most experienced and feared drone groups in the Russian military; usually they're just called Rubicon by the Ukrainians. This drone unit is still shrouded in mystery; no one knows exactly how big it is or even if it's a single unit or a network of semi-independent task forces. Rubicon was reported by Ukrainian sources to have an immediate impact on the battlefield. Their swarms of FPV drones are controlled by fiber optic cables instead of radio signals, so they're immune to electronic jammers that both sides have used to protect themselves. The Ukrainian Bradley team that I spoke to in November 2024 said that this was just when they started to face these new types of drones, but then fast forward to March 2025, and by then Russia had manufactured more and they were widely commonplace. Russia had been able to produce them at scale, which was something that they hadn't got a hang of yet in the past. Even though those spools of fiber optic cables do have a debuff, it makes the drones heavier and less maneuverable than radio-controlled versions, the jam-proof design is widely said to be worth that tradeoff. One of the drones recovered by Ukrainian troops had a spool with over 10 km of fiber optic cable, to give you an idea of just how far they fly.
The Rubicon unit joined the Russian assault of Basivka to the northwest of Suja. Once taking the upper part of that town, the Russians advanced further and they were blocked at a river, but this new vantage point allowed the Rubicon unit to range in and hit that vital supply line of the H07 R200 highway, the one that I've told you about, the only way in and out of Russia. The way ground operations play out in this war is often when the enemy gets within drone striking distance of your supply lines; it's only a matter of time before withdrawal is necessary. One open-source analyst, Andrew Perpeta, a set on X, "Rubicon often targets short distances of roads, 100 to 300 meters long, and they just saturate that area with drones. Attacks are frequently carried out in groups, sometimes hitting the front, back, and sides of a vehicle almost simultaneously. This approach has also been used to hit multiple vehicles in a convoy at once, compounding the damage. They also set traps by landing drones on roads and detonating them underneath passing vehicles, functioning like anti-tank mines, likely using upward-facing shaped charges."
So what happened here was there were aerial roadblocks that strangled the only major supply route in and out of Suja. That route was already a road that was blown to pieces, I saw, but Rubicon destroyed the vehicles and slowed the traffic even further. Ukraine's drivers were forced to move only at night and dodge the wrecks of previous drone targets. One soldier said, "We have all the logistics here on one Sudasumi highway, and everyone knew that the Russians would try to cut it, but this again came as a surprise to our command."
I've said in the past that I try to be unbiased in these reports, but that's not really accurate; of course I'm biased because I'm passionate about and I care about all the topics I choose to cover on this channel. However, I do try to stay objective when reporting the facts, though this is a tough one to talk about. What we know for sure is that when the Ukrainian retreat happened next, the BBC reporters spoke directly with Ukrainian soldiers about their withdrawal from Kursk. All the soldiers widely stated that they had to quickly abandon armored vehicles and artillery pieces in the spot that they were in order to safely make it out of there. Metal and hardware can be replaced, but some of Ukraine's best soldiers cannot. Russian news outlets are now posting videos of captured Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, M1 Abrams battle tanks, and are abandoned in place. The reason equipment is left behind like this is because once that main supply route in and out of the territory comes under the control of enemy fire, if you start a vehicle up, it gives off a big heat signature and becomes an instant target; you're not making it out of there in a vehicle; you can no longer leave on road. So many of the soldiers reported to the BBC that they left Kursk on foot, walking dozens of miles to get back to Ukrainian territory, and they were under constant artillery and drone attack while they did this. These are the facts on the ground that we cannot ignore. Like it or not, the conflict map reveals Russian air and artillery are now pounding the only supply route into and out of the border. Now, traveling that stretch of road was probably the most terrifying thing I've done in my life; you're just holding your breath without even realizing it, and Ukrainian soldiers had to do that trip all the time.
So this reversal of fortunes started a few weeks into February. Because of the timing, though, it's hard to not draw a line between the United States' brief pause of intelligence sharing with Ukraine with these events. Ukrainian intelligence allowed them to see Russian troop movements, staging areas where they were going to be, so Ukraine was blind to attack. They also were unable to use HIMAR strikes during this window. A Ukrainian officer told Time magazine that operations in Kursk felt the impact the most. "As a result of the pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians; it's really causing an advantage for the enemy on the front line."
First time that the North Koreans faced off against Ukrainian forces, they were initially not effective, and then the, and then the North Koreans pulled back and they had to reassess their tactics. Of the 10,000 North Koreans originally sent, they'd suffered nearly 30% casualties, according to NIS, which is a South Korean intelligence agency. Similar numbers are reported by Ukraine; meanwhile, official Russian and North Korean statements say that they don't even have any North Koreans near combat at all. But Ukrainian sources say that North Korean troops came back in a second wave and that they had learned a lot from their initial attacks. One soldier said, "The North Koreans' application of tactics is constantly improving; they're working in better coordination with North Korean artillery units and supported by Russian drone operators. The North Koreans have been particularly effective on the southern axis of Suja, where they've been used as the main assault force to charge the overstretched Ukrainian line; they just sweep us away, advancing in groups of 50 North Koreans while we only have six men on our positions." This was something that Western analysts were paying close attention to: whether or not North Korean troops would be able to apply the lessons learned or if their command structure was too rigid to allow it. So there is some intelligence that's being gleaned from this.
If we look at the live conflict map, we can see that Ukrainian troops have since fallen back mostly to the border. Russian forces surged during this time period, from 38,000 that were originally there to an estimated 70,000 today who are fighting alongside a contingent of 12,000 North Korean reinforcements that have been widely reported on. They use this foothold in hostile territory, surrounded on three sides and outnumbered by 3 to 1 for much of the fight, and now they seem to be, by mid-March. If Ukraine tried to hold on to Sudza any longer, they risked running out of supplies and being completely overrun. On March 16th, the Ukrainian general staff confirmed that they'd given the order to pull out of Suja and fall back to a more defensible position, though geolocated footage from Russian troops shows that the pullout likely happened sometime around March 11th.
The big question is if Russia will continue their press into Sunumi next. When I was there on the ground, I saw the new battle lines were being drawn up on that route; I saw Ukraine had placed hundreds of kilometers of long barbed wire, dragon's teeth, trenches, pillboxes on elevated positions throughout Sunumi every couple of hundred meters. Whether those defensive fortifications will hold up now or not, we will probably, whether those defensive fortifications will be enough to deter a movement through here or not, we will have to wait and see. As these territorial changes happen on the ground, they've made their way to the higher-level ceasefire negotiations. Conditions on the ground often reflect the larger geopolitics. Putin claimed that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in Suja had been fully encircled, and he urged them to surrender or die. Counter-claims by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense dispute that and assert that the troops are not encircled. Some Ukrainian sources believe that Ukrainian forces withdrew with a lot of their combat power intact, while others believe it was a full route with lots of equipment lost, which will have an operational impact on their ability to reconstitute and fight elsewhere. Although the new reports of their incursion to Belgrad seem to suggest they still have offensive power. Zalinsky stated that he launched the operation; its Kursk lost to create a buffer zone against future attacks into Sunumi, but it's also a consensus among Western think tanks and military analysts that a second goal was to hold Russian territory as a bargaining chip during future peace negotiations. We'll have to see if Ukraine holds on to any Russian territory when it comes time for a peace deal; we'll have to see how much political pressure is on Putin. Some have argued the attack was initially just a diversionary move or a morale boost that ended up working better than they expected; there were rumors I heard from speaking to intelligence guys in Ukraine that they didn't fully anticipate their initial success in Kursk and that it just opened up new options for them as it happened. Others argue the Kursk incursion was a waste of the best-trained and equipped Ukrainian troops that could have slowed advances elsewhere. Much of the front line has largely been a stalemate for the past year. One of my favorite YouTube channels, PON, actually calculated out that if a snail had started in eastern Ukraine at the same time as the full-scale invasion, the snail would have reached Poland by now. Relatively speaking, it's been a deadlock, so anytime there's any kind of change on the ground, it's worth looking at.
I'm your average infantryman, Chris Cappy, signing off this net for either the last time or the second-to-last time, but I'll be leaving at the end of this week. Be sure to follow me on Instagram or Twitter, CappyArmy. This is going to be one of my last episodes as the head of video for Task and Purpose.